Introduction

The
Soviets conducted a long running campaign of strategic deception
against the
West through the whole Cold War period, and the protracted development
of the
Soviet FOBS nuclear weapon system presents an excellent case study of
such.

The
Soviet RVSN or Strategic Rocket Forces were involved in a sustained and
intensive arms race against the US Air Force Strategic Air Command, the
intent
being to provide a decisive advantage in ballistic missile exchanges in
the
event of a full scale nuclear conflict. An important part of this
campaign was
the deployment of large phased array Ballistic Missile Early Warning
(BMEW)
radar systems by both sides. The BMEW radars would track incoming
ballistic missiles
and Re-entry Vehicles (RV) as they rose above the radar horizon and
then
re-entered the atmosphere, track these, and provide estimated impact
points,
impact times, and with lesser accuracy, locations of launchers. The
systems of
BMEW radars deployed by both sides were critical in providing early
warning of
a nuclear attack in progress, and data to support decisions on what
retaliatory
strikes should be launched at what targets. Both sides considered
launching
strikes against empty ICBM silos to be an ineffective strategy.

Soviet
RVSN strategists quickly recognised that the first generation of BMEW
radars
deployed by the US were oriented to track Soviet attacks on direct
trajectories, in which ICBMs were launched from sites in European
Russia and
Siberia, and would reach their apogees over the northern polar regions.
Without
BMEW coverage through the southern geographical arc, US nuclear
warfighting
staffs were blind to attacks from other directions. This presented an
opportunity for the Soviets, as a wave of strikes on key US facilities
without
warning could permit defacto decapitation of the US command, control
and
communications systems, and if sufficient warheads were delivered, key
silo
fields could be heavily damaged reducing residual US retaliatory
capability.
Given the nuclear warfighting imperative of “use them or lose them”,
the player
who could knock out as many opposing ICBMs in the opening round of a
nuclear
conflict had an important advantage.

The
Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) as it was known in the
West, was a
Soviet innovation intended to exploit the limitations of US BMEW radar
coverage. The idea behind FOBS was that a large thermonuclear warhead
could be
inserted into a steeply inclined low altitude polar orbit, such that it
would
approach the CONUS from any direction, but primarily from the southern
hemisphere, and following a programmed braking manoeuvre, re-enter from
a
direction which was not covered by US BMEW radars. The first warning
the US
would have of such a strike in progress would be the EMP transients
produced by
the nuclear devices initiating over their programmed targets in the
CONUS.

FOBS
Development

Development
of the 8K713 GR-1 (Globalnaya Raketa -1 or Global Missile 1) was
initiated in
1962 by OKB-1, led by Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov. This was to be the
last
ballistic missile design produced by Korolyov, best known in the West
for his
effort in the Soviet space program.

The
development effort on the 8K713 GR-1 ceased in 1964, without a single
test
launch having been performed. Despite, as part of a strategic deception
effort,
the Soviets displayed this missile as an operational weapon system
during their
annual Red Square military parade. Western analysts were convinced that
this
system was in use, and it was allocated the US/NATO designation of
SS-10 SCRAG.

What the
Soviets did deploy operationally was an entirely different FOBS system,
the
R-36-O or 8K69 developed by SKB-586, led by Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel’.
Based then
and since in Dnepropetrovsk, in the Ukraine, the design bureau was
co-located
with the Yuzhniy Mashinostoryenniy Zavod manufacturing plant.

Strategic
Deception
-
The
OKB-1
8K713/GR-1
/
SS-10
SCRAG FOBS

Above, below, close-in imagery of
the GR-1 FOBS on parade in Moscow during the early 1960s. Development
of these missiles was never completed and these examples were used to
deceive the West as to actual RVSN capabilities. The real operational
Yangel R-36O / SS-9 SCARP Mod.3 did not enter service until much later
(via Russian Internet).

Above,
below,
imagery
of
the
GR-1
FOBS
on
parade in Moscow
during the early 1960s. The transporters are towed by MAZ-535A heavy
artillery tractors (via Russian Internet).

Soviet
propaganda image of GR-1 missiles being readied for silo loading. These
were staged, with RVSN troops used to lend authenticity to a sham
(Soviet MoD).

The
Yangel R-36 / SS-9 SCARP ICBM

Yangel's
R-36
ICBM
was
the
Soviet equivalent to the US Titan series of heavy
ICBMs. It formed the basis of the operational R-36-O FOBS, and the
subsequent R-36M series (US DoD).

R-36
ICBMs on parade in Moscow
during the early 1960s. The transporters are towed by MAZ-535A heavy
artillery tractors (via Russian Internet).

The first generation R-36 being loaded
into a silo. Later variants used storable liquid propellant, and
encapsulated storage to permit rapid silo reloads (US DoD).

Development
of
a
FOBS
derivative of the existing R-36 heavy ICBM design was
authorised in
16th April, 1962, leading to approval and assignment of the 8K69
designation in December, 1962, and subsequently, initial prototypes in
the
third quarter of 1964.

In
January, 1965, the government authority directed that the missile be
redesigned
for an “encapsulated” launch system. Until then, Soviet ICBMs were
stacked in
situ in a silo, and then fuelled for operation with the toxic and
corrosive
liquid propellant mix. The new encapsulated packaging scheme would see
the
ICBMs stacked, and then installed in a hermetic launch container, which
was
inserted into a silo for long duration standby operation. Prior to
sealing, the
missile was pumped full of the inhibited propellant mix, which would
allow it
to sit in a silo for 7.5 years, ready for launch at five minutes
notice, before
it needed to be extracted, defueled, and overhauled.

In
introduction of this scheme was intended to increase the operational
readiness
of the RVSN ICBM force, which was at that time largely equipped with
liquid
fuelled missiles. ICBMs could sit in silos ready for immediate launch,
within
minute of a launch order arriving at the hardened Launch Control Centre
for the
silo.

Design
bureau test launches of the R-36-0 / 8K69 commenced in December, 1965,
from the
Baikonur LC-160 and LC-162 silo complexes. The R-36-O / 8K69 FOBS was
accepted
into operational service on the 19th November, 1968, and remained
operational until January, 1983.

The
R-36-O was designated in the US/NATO system as the SS-9 Mod
3 SCARP or “SS-9 FOBS”, and is sometimes labeled the R-36orb. The
principal
difference compared to the basic R-36 was redesigned terminal stage,
with a
liquid propellant de-orbit engine, designed to decelerate the RV.

The
8F021 would, as it neared the de-orbit manoeuvre entry point, start the
AT/UDMH
liquid fuelled de-orbit engine turbopump using a solid propellant gas
generator. Exhaust gasses from the turbine were used for vehicle
attitude
control, using a 4 + 4 thruster arrangement. This de-orbit engine
design later
formed the basis of the Tsiklon 3 ELV S5.23/RD-861 third stage orbital
engine,
rated at 78.710 kN / 17,695 lbf. The cited CEP for the RV was 1.1 km.

Conceived
at the peak of the Cold War, the Soviet FOBS effort showed the extreme
lengths
to which the Soviets were prepared to go in order to gain a decisive
advantage
over the West in a nuclear confrontation.

The usefulness of the FOBS
declined
very rapidly, as the US deployed early warning satellites capable of
tracking
missile launch signatures, and the expanded coverage BMEWS network,
with the
new phased array AN/FPS-115 PAVE PAWS detection and precision tracking
radars.

While the
FOBS had unlimited range and could attack targets anywhere on
the
globe, the loss of the element of surprise due to improved early
warning systems
relegated it to the position of an expensive single warhead missile
with
limited 5 Megatonne yield with 1,100 metre CEP, and longer flight time,
compared to later MRV/MIRV ICBM
variants of the
R-36. Eighteen silos at Baikonur were loaded with these weapons until
1983,
when they were decommissioned under the terms of the SALT-2 treaty.

The Soviet FOBS program was devised to
exploit the limited geographical coverage of the first generation US
BMEWS system, which provided coverage only in the northern sector. The
advent of the FOBS and more capable Soviet SLBMs saw the deployment of
AN/FPS-115 PAVE PAWS phased array BMEW radars at Beale AFB in
California, and Otis AFB in Massachussetts, expanding angular coverage
of CONUS and rendering the FOBS unusable in its original role (diagrams US Air Force).